Spartan Daily Vol. 160 No. 11

Black Power Statue vandalized

By Dominique Huber STAFF WRITER

A man vandalized San Jose State’s Olympic Black Power Statue by urinating and vomiting on it Saturday.

The man, whose name was not released, was apprehended by SJSU University Police Department officers shortly after the incident.

He was charged with vandalism, possession of unlawful paraphernalia and other misdemeanor counts.

When questioned by UPD officers, the man said he vandalized the statue under the impression that it was paying homage to human trafficking.

“That shows you that his reality was a little different,” said UPD Capt. Frank Belcastro.

Officers concluded the man was not under the influence of substances at the time of his arrest.

The statue was not permanently damaged.

A passerby used a bluelight phone on campus to alert UPD of the incident.

The bluelight phones were placed all over SJSU to connect users directly to the UPD Communications Center.

A passersby reported seeing the man vandalize the statue and promptly move to Clark Hall where they said he began pulling on the doors repeatedly.

UPD received a second call that night from another individual who said the man was trying to open the doors of Hugh Gillis Hall.

The patrol officers on duty responded to the calls and searched for the man based on a description the first reporting party provided.

They found him a few blocks away where he ran from officers before being arrested.

Michelle Smith McDonald, SJSU’s senior director of media relations, said the man was charged with

Experts evaluate academic ethics behind ChatGPT

By Jillian Darnell OPINION EDITOR

OpenAI, an artificial intelligence company, has created a free online tool known as ChatGPT, a language processing program that uses AI to generate responses to designated prompts.

College students have been using ChatGPT as a tool for their assignments to explore different ways of responding to prompts for written assignments.

SJSU alumni reflect on recent tech layoffs

By Dylan Newman STAFF WRITER

Tech layoffs continue to affect Silicon Valley’s workers by the thousands with companies including Yahoo and Zoom among the most recent to make layoffs.

The tech and biotech industries have reached a milestone of 20,000 positions that have been or are projected to be cut in the Bay Area layoffs, according to an article published by The Mercury News on Feb. 14.

Among the people who have been laid off is San Jose State alumnus, Shreyam, who requested to be referred to by his first name for security reasons. He graduated from SJSU in 2020 with a master’s in software engineering.

Shreyam said he was working for the data and cloud company NetApp, when it announced a cut of

8% of its global workforce at the end of January.

He said his experience is a pressing issue for those who are in the U.S. on a work visa.

“Even though there are openings, the job market is saturated with talented professionals due to the massive layoffs, so the competition is high for each open role,” Shreyam said. “Along with that, candidates on a temporary visa like an H-1B or F-1, have only a few weeks to find a job, or else they lose their visa status and cannot stay in the country.”

H-1B is a worker’s visa that allows companies to employ non-citizens to live and work in the U.S., according to a U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services webpage.

F-1 visas are given to foreign students and allow them to live and study in the U.S. without citizenship, according to the same webpage.

QuickBites, an initiative sponsored by San Jose State’s Humanities and Arts in Action program, held “ChatGPT: Help or Hype?” a virtual event where professionals from SJSU discussed this topic.

The event was hosted by Sara West, assistant professor of professional and technical writing, and education professor Roxana Marachi.

“If students are going to be using it, they are cheating themselves, they’re not getting the education they paid for,” Marachi said.

West and Marachi spoke about AI and what the existence of ChatGPT means for the future of students’ learning.

ChatGPT accesses information from the internet to retrieve and apply knowledge to the written response it generates.

Marachi said not all the information from the AI is accurate and that the AI is a “con artist.”

“ChatGPT is really good at telling us what we want to hear,” Marachi said. “Someone who is struggling may ask ChatGPT what to do,

and that is a problem.”

West and Marachi tested the accuracy of the program by putting in prompts relating to their research.

They found that ChatGPT would have false information, citing things that were incorrect.

“It’s designed to almost produce that misinformation, because it’s not designed to go look up the person and then give you the information,” West said. “It’s designed to guess what word is next.”

During the event, the speakers discussed how ChatGPT has the ability to generate written responses to prompts based on data patterns.

West and Marachi said there is no guarantee the information will be completely accurate and there have been instances when ChatGPT has failed in generating factual information.

There was also a discussion on the AI potentially inputting harmful, discriminatory information that could create a bad reputation for the student if they’re not careful.

“Then you’re going to be responsible for that text, not the AI,” West said.

The Peabody EDI Office of Equity, Diversity and Inclusion from Vanderbilt University sent out an email to the school population regarding the recent Michigan State University mass shooting that occurred on Feb. 13.

The office used ChatGPT to generate the email and students were outraged by the misinformation in

CAROLYN BROWN | SPARTAN DAILY

San Jose State’s Olympic Black Power Statue stands clean on Monday after it was vandalized on Saturday night.

Continued from page 1

Shreyam said he spends his days connecting with his network and preparing for interviews to reenter the workforce.

Once an employee under a H-1B visa loses their job, they have 60 days to regain lawful citizenship status, according to a Visa Nation webpage. He said his advice to students is to keep making connections and continue to invest in skills of their own to stay relevant

and attractive regardless of job trends.

“All industries have ups and downs,” Shreyam said. “We stay relevant by working hard and working smart.”

SJSU accounting associate professor Caroline Chen said workers are a tech company’s biggest expense. She said salaries and benefits are no longer a part of the equation when companies lay workers off.

“It gives you the biggest bang for your buck to cut people because you don’t have to pay them benefits,” Chen said. “You don’t have to pay

the government social security or Medicare anymore, or the state government.”

Chen said because of the offloading of positions, the workloads from the laid off employees are shoveled onto the salaried employees, who make the same amount of money regardless of the extra time working.

“You’re just going to basically tell [workers], do your job plus 50% of somebody else’s job,” she said. “Otherwise, you’ll lose your job.”

Chen said layoffs in tech make up a very small portion of overall employment in the U.S., and that the

GPT

Continued from page 1

the email and the lack of human thoughts that went into the public statement, according to Vanderbilt’s school newspaper, the Vanderbilt Hustler.

According to West and Marachi, students must be wary when using this program for writing their papers. It can take away from the learning process and it may not answer the prompt as needed.

Professors are aware of ChatGPT, and they are cracking down on assigning students prompts that will prove if a student is using the program or not.

English senior Fatima Bello said she believes

that ChatGPT would hinder students and their writing.

“I feel like it would not help students, many students are already struggling with writing as it is,” Bello said. “It can definitely help guide them, but many students would not use it that way. They would use it to write their research papers and they wouldn’t learn how to write.” West and Marachi talked about the dangers and benefits of ChatGPT.

They discussed how it can be a method to help point students in the right direction of what to write, leading them to sources they can explore in the writing process, but they also mentioned why ChatGPT has the potential to be harmful.

unemployment rate is at the lowest it’s been in 50 years, as announced by President Joe Biden on Jan. 6.

There has been more than 93,000 workers laid off by U.S. based tech companies in 2023, according to a Feb. 17 article by Crunchbase News.

Engineering professor Ahmed Banafa said nobody really knows when the layoffs will end, but that there’s been a tonal shift in how some of these companies are choosing to operate, moving towards maximum efficiency over keeping long-term employees.

“The new tone I am hearing

VANDALISM

Continued from page 1

resisting arrest and had two outstanding warrants.

Officers questioned the man to find out more about his motivations for vandalizing the statue.

“Based on his statements he wasn’t targeting the statue for what it really represents,” Belcastro said.

Belcastro said UPD has systems in place for patrolling and a designated camera on the statue to avoid similar incidents in future.

The Olympic Black Power Statue depicts Olympic athletes Tommie Smith and John Carlos at the 1968 medal ceremony.

The two SJSU alumni raised their fists in a political statement to draw attention

from the companies and specifically from the CEOs of the companies is efficiency,” Banafa said. “Meaning we will look at doing more with less employees, because inflation is impacting the spending of the customers.”

Banafa also said Silicon Valley “reinvents itself”, and it is always finding fresh ideas to get behind, regardless of the amount of jobs being lost.

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to injustices faced by Black Americans in the U.S.

Biology junior Angelina Craft said she heard about the incident in a campuswide email sent out by Charlie Faas, SJSU Vice President of Administration and Finance.

“It’s really unfortunate and art shouldn’t be defaced,” Craft said. “I’m glad that they got the suspect.”

This is not the first time the statue has been vandalized. In 2014, someone tried to steal the medal piece off one of the figures in the statue.

Authorities never found the perpetrator but the statue has since been repaired. Belcastro said UPD encourages people to report any suspicious activity they see on campus.

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Letters to the Editor may be placed in the letters to the editor box in the Spartan Daily office in Dwight Bentel Hall, Room 209 or emailed to spartandaily@gmail.com to the attention of the Spartan Daily Opinion Editor.

Letters to the Editor must contain the author’s name, year and major. Letters become property of the Spartan Daily and may be edited for clarity, grammar, libel and length. Only letters of 300 words or less will be considered for publication.

Published opinions and advertisements do not necessarily reflect the views of the Spartan Daily, the School of Journalism and Mass Communication or SJSU. The Spartan Daily is a public forum.

Follow Dylan Newman on Twitter @th3dylanproject

PHOTO ILLUSTRATION BY CAROLYN BROWN

Researchers study emperor penguins

By Dominique Huber STAFF WRITER

San Jose State researchers from the Moss Landing Marine Laboratories have traveled to Antarctica to learn more about emperor penguins habits and how climate change is affecting them.

The SJSU team, which consisted of Birgitte McDonald, Caitlin Kroeger and Parker Forman, took several trips to Antarctica in 2019 and finished their field work in late 2022.

The team collaborated with researchers from New Zealand to set up camp at Cape Crozier, Antarctica, home to a colony of emperor penguins.

McDonald, physiological and behavioral ecologist and associate professor for the Moss Landing Marine Labs, said this project was dedicated to investigating how emperor penguins save and expend energy while foraging their ecology along with their habitat use.

“With current climate predictions, most emperor penguin colonies are predicted to be unviable by 2100,” McDonald said. “To predict how the penguins may respond to climate change, we must have information on foraging behavior and habitat use.”

The field work the SJSU team has done in Antarctica is part of a larger five-year project led by New Zealand’s National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research.

The project is aimed towards studying the effectiveness of the Ross Sea, a stretch of ocean off the coast of Antarctica, as a designated Marine Protected Area.

Researchers attached high frequency transmitters and GPS tags to the outer feathers of the penguins to collect the needed data.

Researchers called the process “big hug.”

To start, researchers sat at a distance from the colony and observed the penguins.

Marine science masters student Parker Forman said the penguins would meet his team with curiosity, sometimes approaching the researchers and looking at them for a bit before waddling off.

After spending some time observing

from a distance, researchers slowly approach any penguin that comes close enough.

One person would gently embrace the penguin while another put a custom-made hood over the penguin’s head.

Once the hood is on, Forman said the penguin enters a state of calm during which researchers are able to take their measurements, including flipper length and weight.

After the tracking transmitters and tags are applied, the hood is removed and the penguin is released to go about its normal activities.

Forman said the transmitters and GPS devices are essential to the research.

going out to sea.

Forman said it is quite remarkable considering the fact that the creatures only weigh about 50 pounds.

The researchers also found that the penguins traveled farther than expected.

Forman said one penguin in 2019 swam for 16 days, traveling over 1,000 km (621 miles).

“It’s the equivalent of this penguin traveling from SJSU all the way down to LA and back just to feed its chick,” Forman said.

He said on average, emperor penguins swim about 35 miles per day and dive to almost 500 meters.

“All that information is key for us to better understand what they’re doing at sea, how much food they’re capturing,” Forman said.

McDonald said climate change has serious consequences for emperor penguins.

The birds were listed as a threatened species in late 2022, according to the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service website.

He said, after the transmitters are on, the penguins go out to sea for about 10 days on average.

During this time, they capture prey to give to their young.

The researchers’ transmitter device beeps when the penguins are back in the area, signaling that it’s time for them to go and repeat the process to weigh it and remove the data loggers from the penguin’s feathers.

Once the tagged penguins returned and the devices used to track them were retrieved, researchers would begin sorting through the information collected.

“That’s when the real work starts,” Forman said. “We have to process all the data from the tags, which takes years.”

The researchers have found the penguins gained around 3.5 pounds on average after

Forman said this is because they are an iceobligant species and climate change is disrupting ice dynamics in the penguins’ habitats.

He said the ice formations that are changing are critical to parts of the penguins’ breeding cycle.

McDonald and her team of researchers are continuing their work in Antarctica, and they are now researching the post molt foraging ecology and habitat use of emperor penguins.

“In order to best protect [emperor penguins] and develop appropriate policy, we must

know more about their behavior and ecology,” McDonald said.

She said the data they collect at Cape Crozier will help them “develop and apply methods which can measure long-term changes in the marine protected area.”

With current climate predictions, most emperor penguin colonies are predicted to be unviable by 2100.

Birgitte McDonald associate professor Moss Landing Marine Labs

Students bridge art to social issues

San Jose State students learned how to use painting as a means of activism in an “arts and craftivism” event in the Student Union on Thursday.

This is the second event of the Activism in Action series held by the Cesar Chavez Community Action Center.

Arts and craftivism is the connection of various art mediums with commentary on social justice issues, according to Museum of Design Atlanta.

Guest speaker and painter Pedro Rivas Lopez said expressing a desire or change through art can allow dialogue around a social justice issue to live on while protesting sparks change for a brief moment.

“I think visual art, there’s no time capsule on it because it’s going to continue to live,” Rivas Lopez said. “If it’s about a social issue it can still remain itself and then, a month later, it could be exhibited in museums, it could be exhibited in community centers, it can be taken to a coffee shop.”

He led with icebreakers where students ran across one side of the room to the next, loosening them up and cutting some of the crowd’s tension.

Some students painted on wooden monarch butterflies provided by Rivas Lopez.

He said the monarch exemplifies transformation, one of his favorite characteristics in life.

“We see the butterfly, it transforms from this thing and then it becomes this beautiful [butterfly] that I think everybody loves and knows it’s majestic,” Rivas Lopez said. “I love [monarchs] for that main reason.”

He said butterflies resonate with him because he had to transform into a different person because of his life experiences.

“I can identify a lot with [butterflies] just because of where I come from and the challenging moments I’ve had to endure,” Rivas Lopez said. “Me migrating

Aceves painted her butterfly orange and planned to put a fence along the top of her canvas.

She said it was hard to narrow down one issue she wanted to convey in her piece, but chose to represent problems at the United States-Mexico border.

Aceves said art can stand out to people and stick with them longer when they connect the art they see with real-world issues.

“[Immigration] is pretty close to me because that’s part of the community I’m a part of,” Aceves said. “I have a lot

so even when those issues come up, in the arts it can be very therapeutic for students to engage in art and not just leave them in this state of despair,” Garcia Rodriguez said.

She said before the pandemic, students were becoming aware of deeper issues going on in their world.

“We’re seeing students that are coming in and they know about these issues,” Garcia Rodriguez said. “And they’re not looking for ways to dive necessarily deeper, but they’re looking for ways to do something about it.”

She said her main objective is to let people know that change can start in their own hometown rather than thinking globally.

“That’s one of the big things to remember when it comes to grassroots organizing and getting civically engaged,” Garcia Rodriguez said. “A lot of that change comes locally versus nationally.”

from Mexico and other transformations that I’ve had to go through to finally spread the wings and be comfortable with who I am.”

Forensic science freshman Evelyn Aceves said art might be easier for people to digest.

“The difference between protest and art – the art really sticks with you and is something you can always remember and it really makes a connection with other people,” Aceves said.

of family members and I’ve heard stories about what goes on the border, people trying to cross.”

Diana Garcia Rodriguez, Cesar Chavez Community Action Center department coordinator, said the Activism in Action series is a way to allow students to voice their concerns about the world through a creative outlet.

She said pre-pandemic workshops were informative but weren’t as therapeutic as this series.

“Art is something that’s very healing,

Matthew Gonzalez STAFF WRITER

Follow Matthew Gonzalez on Twitter @MattG2001

Painter and guest speaker Pedro Rivas Lopez explains different ways to design a butterfly for the second Activism in Action series event on Thursday in the Student Union.

ENRIQUE GUTIERREZ-SEVILLA SPARTAN DAILY

Art is something that’s very healing, so even when those issues come up, in the arts it can be very therapeutic for students to engage in art and not just leave them in this state of despair.

Diana Garcia Rodriguez

Cesar Chavez Community Action Center department coordinator

Quartet shakes the concert hall

By Brandon Nicolas STAFF WRITER

Hearts raced as the audience swooned over the Grammy award winning Takács Quartet who performed three compositions Thursday night at the San Jose State Concert Hall.

The quartet is composed by violinists Edward Dusinberre and Harumi Rhodes, violist Richard O’Neill and cellist András Fejér.

Based in Boulder at the University of Colorado, the Takács Quartet has played all around the world. They played in European venues including Edinburgh Festival Fringe, Schwetzingen Festival and Auditorio Nacional de Música.

A string quartet is composed of four string players and was a popular ensemble to compose for during the mid-18th century.

“Colorful, warm and intentional,” said music composition junior Dylan Gadoury. “Everything they did was intentional.”

“They are specialists in Beethoven, which is why we invited them here,” said Director of the Ira F. Brilliant Center for Beethoven Studies Erica Buurman.

“They’ve recorded all the Beethoven string quartets.”

Founded in 1983, the Beethoven Center at SJSU is the largest collection of Beethoven materials in North America. The center serves as a museum and archive for scholars and musicians.

Buurman said she knew she wanted to bring Takács Quartet to San Jose before her first days working on campus, after joining the center in 2019.

“I was still living in the U.K. and I met the quartet in London,” Buurman said. “That was the

MOVIE REVIEW

first connection, and since then there’s been a back and forth about rescheduling.”

She said the group had planned to play at SJSU in 2020, but canceled due to the coronavirus shelter in place.

“A challenge with a group like that is making it work with their schedule because they are booked up years ahead,” Buurman said. “We are very lucky to make this work.”

Buurman said she kept in contact with the quartet over Zoom during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic discussing Beethoven’s String Quartet No. 15 in A Minor, Op. 132.

“It’s safe to say that when the first audiences heard this piece they were shocked,” said Dusinberre, one of two violinists in the quartet. “To some extent, it is a very important spirit to keep in the music so that however many times we play that mysterious opening, somehow we should feel surprised by it and in awe of it.”

Dusinberre joined the group in July 1993, and said traveling with a quartet is exciting and inspiring when playing for audiences in new places.

“There’s a particular layer to rehearsing here in the middle of the Beethoven Center and thinking of the tremendous history and lineage that this place represents,” he said.

He was the first non-Hungarian to join the group, which now has several international members.

Dusinberre said it is the combination of traditions and innovations within the group that make it unique.

“What’s different about what we do is the chemistry and interactions between the four of us,” he said.

The Takács Quartet’s first piece was Fanny Mendelssohn

Violinists Edward Dusinberre (left), Harumi Rhodes (behind), cellist András Fejér (middle) and violist Richard O’Neill (right) of the Takács Quartet perform at the San Jose Concert Hall on Thursday.

Hensel’s String Quartet in E-flat Major.

Buurman said the composition was written in 1834 and was one of the first string quartets written by a woman. During that time, compositions by women weren’t common.

Historically, Felix Mendelssohn, Fanny’s brother, had much of the limelight.

After Fanny’s passing, Felix composed a quartet in F Minor in requiem for his late sister.

Dusinberre said the two had a strong musical relationship, something the Takács Quartet wanted to explore.

“Because of the times and prejudice, the idea of her being a professional music performer was completely out of the question,” Dusinberre said. “But she had this great talent and somehow against the odds found a way to express

her voice – we wanted to bring that out.”

Dusinberre said Mendelssohn’s String Quartet in E-flat Major is highly expressive and dramatic, even having a melancholy slow movement that showcases daring changes in chord.

“It was very stimulating,” said software engineering senior Ekam Grewal. “I imagined a lot of action and thought it was very dynamic.”

Gadoury said they came together in high spirits and thought the performance was relaxing.

“It was my first time in the concert hall,” Grewal said. “If you see any events like this where you get to explore a new part of campus, go for it because you never know how it is going to make you feel.”

Dusinberre said audiences should not feel pressured to

like the music, but instead asks listeners to be open and aware of how they react to the performance.

“To go to a concert, it might feel like you are just sitting there and these people are doing things on stage,” he said. “It’s not really that [. . .] music doesn’t exist without people to react and listen to it.”

Dusinberre’s book “Distant Melodies: Music in Search of Home” was written during the pandemic and helped him travel in his imagination, exploring the correlation between music and ideas of home.

“Many of us who care about music in certain ways use it to shape the stories of our lives,” Dusinberre said.

Follow the Spartan Daily on Twitter @Spartandaily

Ant-Man: go quantum or go home!

By Oscar Frias-Rivera SENIOR STAFF WRITER

s -Rivera RITER

“Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania” was a fun film to start Phase 5 in the Marvel saga. While other Marvel movies begin on a more serious scale, Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania” offers a movie featuring a comedic hero who doesn’t have any inherent powers or isn’t considered one of the strongest heroes. It’s always a great time to see Ant-Man in battle.

“Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness” and “Thor: Love and Thunder” were disappointments for me last year, so I didn’t expect much going into the theaters to watch Ant-Man.

The visuals came out to be much better than previous Marvel movies that had an issue with some of the backgrounds’ blatant CGI.

movie review

“Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania”

Rating:

Directed by: Peyton Reed

Starring: Paul Rudd, Kathryn Newton

ll e d it as Ant-Man.

Th oug h I wis h t h ey kept t h e origina l actor, t h is new Cassie is an OK version w h o grew on me t h roug h out t h e f i l m. Newton gave a great p er formance as C assie and

I ’m s ure sh e’ ll k ill

i t later in the sa g a when she is brou g ht back While this was the first time Newton worked with Rudd, she didn’t lose any of the chemistr y t h at Fu hrm ann h ad w it h him

Newton, a different actress than when she was initially introduced in “Avengers: Endgame,” though I preferred the previous actress, Emma Fuhrmann, because of how similar she looked to Rudd.

Cassie owns a suit just like Ant-Man and the Wasp, but struggles to use it in combat throughout the film.

With Cassie building a device to the Quantum Realm and Janet having flashbacks about the time she was in it, Janet manages to mess up. She ends up sending the whole family stuck in the Quantum Realm. We get a first peak of who Janet was before she escaped the Quantum Realm.

The film does an excellent job bringing up things that happened in previous movies that fans may not know much about.

T h e f i l j o b b rin g h appene d th at f a n abo

just like how he is in the comics. Though we have yet to see what he’s really capable of in this film, I have a feeling that once he’s seen more, he will kill some of our favorite heroes.

T h is Multivers how any t h C

This movie set up the Multiverse in a way that shows how anything is possible in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

This film was a great showcase to see what the future holds for the rest of Phase 5.

Though it was set in the Quantum Realm, the movie gave an insight for a wild future to come in the coming Marvel movies.

T hou g Q uantu m g ave a n future t Marve l We n ew b i n K a

We finally get to see the new big bad in the MCU in Kang the Conqueror, who we last saw in the Marvel show “Loki” back in 2021.

We get enough action throughout the film and get to see Ant-Man actually be a hero for his daughter.

The biggest let down was not having any of his friends from the previous movie, like his best friend Luis, played by Michael Peña, having to explain everything that went down in a funny way.

Jonathan Majors portrayed Kang very well in this film as he seemed to come off slow at first, but when you see how powerful he really is, you know shit is about to go down.

M arv e b ack i Jo n p ortr a t h to c o b ut p ow e you k dow

The best part of the movie was seeing how Kang will handle the rest of the Marvel Universe to come with all of himself uniting to build something more sinister.

I waited forever for him to appear in the MCU again because of how huge of a threat he’ll be to every hero he has to encounter.

I wa to app e a b ecause t hreat he’ enc

The fi

With many twists and turns throughout the film, I honestly thought it was going to go some other route, but I’m glad it ended how it did.

i n the Qu p ortray e d wasn’t a p

The film is mainly based in the Quantum Realm and is portrayed using CGI, which wasn’t a problem for me.

This won’t be the last time we see either Ant-Man, the Wasp or Kang the Conqueror. This is only the beginning.

I’m sure Rotten Tomatoes had a field day with the CGI, but I thought it made the film unique and different.

I ’m s u had a fie but I tho

u ni que an

With this film, we got to learn more about how Kang became himself- where he was from and why he was stuck in the Quantum Realm.

Kang is just as large of a threat as Thanos was in the previous Marvel movies.

“Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania” portrays him

The amount of hate this film has been receiving before it even came out is ridiculous. Go grab some popcorn, a drink and watch the film because it’s definitely worth watching until the end.

BRANDON NICOLAS | SPARTAN DAILY

SJSU suffers worst loss in conference

By Nathan Canilao EXECUTIVE EDITOR

In a vital game for the Mountain West Conference playoff seeding, the San Jose State men’s basketball team lost 96-68 against the University of New Mexico on Friday night at the Provident Credit Union Event Center.

The Spartans suffered their worst loss in conference play this season and their worst loss since their 41-point defeat to Arkansas on Dec. 3, 2022

Had the Spartans won, they would have taken control of the No. 5 spot in the Mountain West standings which is vital heading into the championships in three weeks.

Senior guard Omari Moore led SJSU with 18 points, 4 rebounds and 3 assists while junior center Ibrahima Diallo recorded 12 points and 9 rebounds.

“It was a disappointing night for the Spartans,” said head coach Tim Miles. “I thought that New Mexico was the aggressor in every phase of the game.”

The Spartans kept the game close in the first few minutes of play.

BASEBALL

SJSU held a small 15-14 lead at the 12:14 mark in the first half, but that was the last time the Spartans would be ahead of the Lobos.

New Mexico went on a 36-16 run from that point to end the first half, leading 50-31 going into intermission.

The Lobos shot 62.1% from the field in the first half and scored 11 points off of 7 SJSU turnovers.

“We could never really get defensive stops,” Miles said about the Lobos’ first half run. “It really came to our defense not playing at the standard it needed to tonight.”

SJSU failed to mount any resemblance of a comeback in the second half and New Mexico cruised to a 28-point victory.

The Spartans emptied their bench in the last five minutes of the game, signaling that they had waived the white flag.

A big question for SJSU coming into this game was if the team was going to be able to keep New Mexico guards Jamal Mashburn and Jaelen House in check.

The duo combined for

34 points and 8 assists, leading the Lobos to control the game on the offensive end.

SJSU also had a hard time defending forward Morris Udeze, who led the Lobos with 31 points and 12 rebounds.

“It starts with one-onone battles,” Miles said. “Mashburn got his right over

our guys . . . He was really sharp tonight.”

The Spartans had a hard time finding scoring outside Moore and Diallo all night.

The three other starters for SJSU combined for 12 points on 29.4% shooting from the field.

The Lobos snapped a four-game losing streak and handed the Spartans

a second conference loss at home.

SJSU is scheduled to face the University of Nevada, Reno at 7 p.m. on Tuesday at Lawlor Events Center.

The Spartans lost their last matchup with Nevada 67-40 on Jan. 7.

“I always go back and look at what adjustments do [I] have to make, so I’ll have

to look at that and see what adjustments I have to make,” Miles said about their last game against Nevada. “That was a game a little bit like tonight where we were up one in the first and then it went sideways.”

Lighting forces game to be postponed

By Mat Bejarano STAFF WRITER

San Jose State baseball held its home opener against Cal Poly on Monday, at Excite Ballpark where the game was stopped at the end of the eighth inning because of lack of night light availability on the pitch.

The game was postponed to April 18 in San Luis Obispo.

After the eighth inning, with the Mustangs leading 11-10, the game was stopped because the field got dark.

Junior shortstop Theo Hardy went 3-for-5 and batted in three runs. Junior right fielder Charles McAdoo went 2-for-3 while recording a homerun.

Starting pitcher Ethan Ross would only pitch two innings, striking out three while only giving up one run.

McAdoo said the team wanted to set the tone early for their home opener.

“We just got to keep our heads down and work,” McAdoo said. “I feel like we are all solid right now. As the year progresses, we’re going to keep getting better and that’s all that matters.”

The Spartans came in hot after taking 2-of-3 against Loyola Marymount University and looked like they were going to add another win to their column, but their

bullpen couldn’t corral the Mustangs.

The Spartans started the game with an explosive bang as McAdoo would hit a solo home run, giving the Spartans an early 1-0 in the bottom of the first.

“I was looking for something up in the zone and that’s what I got,” McAdoo said. “I hammered it.”

The offense continued its momentum throughout the first few innings, scoring four runs in the second fourth inning that included a second inning RBI single by junior left fielder Robert Hamchuk that extended the SJSU lead to 9-3.

The Spartans’ did not hold onto that lead as Cal Poly battled back to score seven runs in the top of the seventh inning.

SJSU Pitcher Cade Cushing opened the seventh inning, giving up a lead-off single and eventually gave up three runs.

Corey Sanchez would relieve Cushing, but couldn’t finish the inning after giving up two hits and two walks.

Junior Cade Van Allen came in to relieve Sanchez later in the seventh inning.

With two outs and the bases loaded, the Spartans were clinging out to a 9-9 tie when Van Allen threw a

wild pitch allowing Cal Poly to take their first lead of the game 10-9.

SJSU responded with a run of their own in the bottom of seventh inning, but once again the Spartans could not stop Cal Poly in the eighth.

The Spartans allowed another run in at the top of the eighth inning which gave the Mustangs an 11-10 lead.

The umpires would call the game in the bottom of the

eighth inning after the field grew dark with the Spartans home stadium not having lighting equipment.

“I was really happy with our effort early, especially offensively, to come out and score to extend our lead 9-3,” said Head Coach Brad Sanfilippo. “We’re learning some good things about our club and I think our guys learned a lesson today in terms of just understanding

that regardless of what the lead is, you have to play and pitch aggressively.”

The Spartans relief pitching has struggled in late-game situations this season as they have given up a total of 16 runs past the seventh inning.

“We’re trying to figure out who can fill those roles,” Sanfilippo said. “We need to figure out the back end for sure, that’s a piece right now that hasn’t been what

we would like it to be.”

The SJSU baseball team is scheduled to play in a four-game series against the University of Washington starting at 1:05 p.m. on Thursday at Excite Ballpark in San Jose.

Follow the Spartan Daily on Twitter @SpartanDaily

NATHAN CANILAO | SPARTAN DAILY

Junior forward Trey Anderson battles for a rebound during SJSU’s game against New Mexico on Friday.

ENRIQUE GUTIERREZ-SEVILLA | SPARTAN DAILY

Freshman pitcher Drew Stapleton winds up for a pitch during SJSU’s game against Cal Poly on Monday.

Follow Nathan on Twitter @nathancanilao